“I don’t think brands need to be political today, I think they need to be clear about their purpose,” says Chris Kay, CEO of advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi.
And on purpose, Mr. Kay says he takes a stand on the values they act by and want to uphold – these could include anything from gender equality to environmental stewardship.
Consumer businesses like clothing stores or fast food chains are feeling increasing pressure to take a public stand on issues their customers care about, from gender identity politics to racial justice to the war in Ukraine.
It’s a tricky balancing act, and recently companies like Coca-Cola, Decathlon and McDonald’s have faced negative hashtag campaigns against them online and threats of boycotts for initially continuing their operations in Russia.
Younger people tend to expect a social and political conscience from their favorite brands. Mr. Kay describes this as a new type of scrutiny that is affecting the way advertising agencies work to shape a company’s public image.
He asks his customers to start a conversation about what values the company really wants to reflect.
“What is their role in the world? What perspective will they help consumers?” are among his questions – and he says they are best addressed with an open conversation.
“If you’re clear about your goal, whatever’s happening in the world, be it International Women’s Day, the morale you have in the boardroom, [allow] You can react to whatever is happening.”
Chris Kay became CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi in the summer of 2021. The advertising agency is a well-known brand itself, thanks to charismatic founders, Iraqi-born brothers Charles and Maurice Saatchi, who founded it in London in 1970.
It owes its reputation to the memorable, overtly political messages it wrote – particularly those pro-Conservative.
His most famous slogan was for the “Labour Isn’t Working” campaign in the 1979 general election.
Another early campaign that attracted attention was The Pregnant Man for Charity, the Health Education Council. To honor this, the agency owns an eponymous pub next to their London headquarters.
Today Saatchi & Saatchi is part of the larger parent company Publicis Groupe and Chris Kay is responsible for UK operations which employ just over 300 people.
His mother was a working class nurse from Burnley in the north of England and his father was a manager in the local factory. They taught him many skills that have helped him in business, albeit indirectly, he says.
“Mum left the house at 6pm to work a night shift, then came home at 6am and sent me off to school.
From his father he learned “to play high and low”, which means to deal with people from all walks of life in a friendly manner. Mr. Kay often went in to watch him at work.
His northern working-class origins made it harder to break into advertising 25 years ago.
After graduating from Manchester University, he tried to gain a foothold in London advertising agencies through the Graduate Milkround.
“I showed up in a corduroy suit thinking I was incredibly dapper but probably looked stupid. I came back north with my tail between my legs.”
“I think I faced prejudice,” he says. “Agencies were built out of an Oxbridge network, it was all about the names above the door, which were well-educated London surnames – I might have been too coarse on the edges.”
However, he proceeded to carve a way up. He got a job with an agency in Manchester and then took a job in London specializing in video game marketing and working on a PlayStation account.
He later became head of marketing for Manchester City football club just as its coffers were being filled by the Abu Dhabi royal family in 2008.
He then built his career outside the UK for more than a decade, working in senior positions in Australia, Asia and the US.
Working abroad, he felt the relief of not having to lug around the class baggage. “Especially in Australia, everyone is new from two generations ago. So there’s a real belief in people doing well, which made me feel like I was part of a great society,” he says.
But his time abroad was also associated with loss. “I feel like I’ve lost my grounding [because] I no longer feel like the working class, I feel like a citizen of the world.”
Mr Kay has returned to the UK and appreciates that the country has “been through incredible changes” including Brexit and Covid.
But has a more optimistic economic outlook for the rest of the year – based on higher adspend towards the end of 2021, more investment in start-ups and some strong gross domestic product (GDP) numbers.
To capture this new spirit of the UK post-pandemic, he believes his company needs to better represent the diversity of the UK.
He believes that stereotypes have been challenged more frequently over the past decade as more families and couples have been used in advertisements based on different racial backgrounds or sexualities.
“A lot has changed in terms of on-screen performance,” he says, but cast isn’t the only answer.
He cites the example of recent Christmas ads, many of which now feature less middle-class white families. “But that’s not all, there are 200 different ways to celebrate Christmas in this country.
“We have to move [on] from the casting to the cultural diversity – to represent everyone and how they live and breathe in this country.”
You can follow CEO Secrets reporter Dougal Shaw on Twitter: @dougalshawbbc
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